Post navigation

4 comments

Do you really want the third wish, the redux
of wishes one and two? Why the need for
a third unless the first have not done their
job shifting time and place, matter and
being into some nebulous hope that
shapes what will be certain reality?

You wish for whatever is better, will relieve
the present, bulwark against the fate that
we call future and yet who’s to know the
truth of future, the wisdom and beauty
that may be revealed if you let if unravel
like some variegated skeins, first one and

then another, color upon color, each when
woven becoming whorl upon whorl of
possibilities impossible to predict. Take the
parrot tulips outside the window and try to sort
their petals, strain the colors back into the
bulb and determine which will rise in the stem.

It is like the wishing, then, so make that third
wish an avowal to let it be: the bluebird flicking
her head in and out, the snake’s Sssss across the
algaed pond all givens,like the shattering of spirea
in the storm, the fractured pots. Let yourself become
the wish: wrap yourself in what is and move beyond.

Prioritizing wishes is hard work!
Our deepest desires are not even
conscious enough for us to voice, so
we fall into the realm of the surface, the obvious
wishes for good health, financial stability, wisdom.

I have lived in the stream of unknowing, a trust
in divine Providence to meet my needs.
Like all humans who wish, who pray I have
asked for “extras”, dessert following a good meal.

Forty years ago, living on the outskirts of a burgeoning city,
suburbs so new it was seven miles to the grocery,
I requested a closer store, a public library, a faith community,
and a Baskin-Robbins – not sure what order.

All wishes were granted,
even things I didn’t know I wanted were given – an arboretum,
walking trails, high ground that didn’t flood, stray cats, and wild birds.
So I really have no clue as to a third wish as I have been saturated
with dozens and dozens of unknown wishes granted.